Hindu Law

This work examines the development of Hindu laws from the ancient period to its emergence as postmodern phenomenon. The book is divided into three parts. The first, comprising seven chapters, examines in depth our current deficient understanding of the historical development of central Hindu concepts within the classical, postclassical, colonial and postcolonial contexts. The second part, composed of five chapters, relies on the theoretical arguments developed in part I, providing detailed analysis of selected areas of Hindu family law.;In examining the development of the Hindu law of marriage, child marriage, polygamy, divorce and maintenance from the Vedic period to the turn of this millennium, the study critically evaluates the legal evidence to examine how Hindu law has developed into a postmodern condition which modernist scholarship seems both unable and unwilling to recognize. The third part deals with the inadequacies of modernist discourses in relation to Hindu law.